Blue Door
by EscapeToCity
Summary: ...a voice from the past...Please R&R...
1. Blue Door

Title: BLUE DOOR  
  
Author: EscapeToCity  
  
Category: Alternate Universe  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summary: Read and find out...  
  
Disclaimer: NONE of these characters belong to me. I am simply painting scenes/situations for them to play/love/suffer in. Peace, blessings & praise to Siegel/Shuster, Warner's & D.C. Comics.  
  
Notes:  
  
...another time, another view...This is a one-shot story from a rarely heard voice in the "Superman" family...  
  
Reviews are awesome! Please let me know what you think.  
  
Reverently,  
  
J.B.  
  
@New Orleans  
  
***********************************************************************  
  
  
  
BLUE DOOR  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He is lost in slumber.  
  
Dreaming, I hope.  
  
Dreaming of the future.  
  
He is my greatest achievement.  
  
Our greatest achievement.  
  
He will never know how much he meant to us.  
  
The images will not compensate for physical touch.  
  
How badly I wish things would turn out differently...  
  
Will they love him?  
  
Will they understand him?  
  
Will he be accepted? Held? Appreciated?  
  
My husband believes with all his heart, all his soul that these far away beings will indeed take him into their fold.  
  
As I glance out onto the glistening blue city, I wish with all my heart that to be true.  
  
******************************************************************  
  
  
  
The city still shimmers with a ethereal beauty, unbeknowst to any other corner of our galaxy. We have reached the pinnacle of intelligence, the height of intellect, the peak of existence...  
  
Yet our society has become arrogant...assuming...  
  
I watch their faces in the central plaza...so assured...so certain of tomorrow...  
  
He has tried to warn them all.  
  
We have both tried.  
  
Three years ago he completed his research project on the Sun.  
  
Three years ago he presented his findings to the Council.  
  
"It will be taken under advisement."  
  
Meaning it was to be ignored.  
  
"The ramblings of a well-meaning, brilliant fool."  
  
Their laughter gives me chills to this day.  
  
That was before the quakes began.  
  
Before the Green Death.  
  
Before the sky turned a permanent red.  
  
He tried to warn them.  
  
The Green Death has swept across the planet.  
  
Millions dead.  
  
Of course, everything and everyone here will be gone soon enough.  
  
The disease was unlike any we had encountered.  
  
Caused by the fusion of the sun's increasing heat and radiation with the gentle blue core of this planet.  
  
The very make-up of the planet changed.  
  
The rocks underneath our feet turned to poison.  
  
Green.  
  
Bodies.  
  
Piled like insects in the cities around the Southern Axis.  
  
Much of the surface of the planet has been abandoned.  
  
We have tunneled downward and built densely.  
  
Argo City and Kandor rise like jewels from the glassy plains...  
  
And here...  
  
Here resembles a crown of jewels, the buildings and laboratories and libraries jutting from the surface, waterfalls and vinery everywhere, a perfect paradise....  
  
A paradise soon to be erased from existence.  
  
The sun glows stronger now than ever.  
  
Yet it is dying. Rapidly.  
  
The final moment will be the cataclysm.  
  
The giant red sun will explode.  
  
Then Krypton will follow.  
  
It was three years ago when my husband first had the idea to save us all by re-establishing the inter-planetary transport systems.  
  
Once upon a time, our planet had enjoyed warm relations with many others in the galaxy, and beyond. Once we welcomed visitors with open arms and minds.  
  
Then we decided we were superior.  
  
We were more *civilized*  
  
All the other planets were genetically inferior.  
  
Our Council decided to cut off all relations, halt research in the field of exploration, and suspend communications with the rest of the universe.  
  
We would exist in complete, splendid, perfect isolation....our perfect blue planet under the red sun.  
  
Isolation...  
  
It means no one will hear our screams...  
  
And there will be millions...  
  
Horrifying, bloody, guttural moans and cries for help...  
  
Already the quakes are taking as many lives as the Green Death...  
  
As I was working at the Archives recently, the entire glass dome cracked after a tremor...  
  
I was badly shaken...  
  
The others simply applied their usual technological prowess...using the fine steels of the planet's core to shore up and secure the glass panels back into place.  
  
They hadn't even been frightened.  
  
Most citizens never are.  
  
Jor says they will be afraid.  
  
At the last moments they will cry out.  
  
As everything cracks and crumbles and sinks...  
  
They will cry out.  
  
I don't want to think of that moment.  
  
Since we have had no wars nor famine nor class system in so many generations, a terrible...dare say, crippling sense of complacency has taken hold in our society.  
  
"Nothing bad will ever happen."  
  
Such is the motto of the common Kryptonian these days.  
  
One would think with the tremors and the ravages of the Green Death, fear would begin to spread...  
  
But the Council keeps that from happening. With their soothing speeches and happy pills...  
  
My husband has tried so desperately to sway our friends, our relatives, to our side of the issue.  
  
But now...  
  
Now...it is too late for anything except our secret plan.  
  
  
  
  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
  
  
I look up towards the sun. It is the same one that warmed me in my youth, that lit my mother's garden in Kandor and it is the same one that will destroy us all.  
  
Everything ends, I tell myself.  
  
I admit I have only a selfish reason for wanting the sun to stay alive.  
  
I so badly wish to see Kal grow up and be happy.  
  
So many people already think I have made mistakes as a parent.  
  
I had him the old way, the hard way.  
  
Both of us wanted to do things naturally.  
  
I didn't want one of the babies born in the blue vaults with the mindless eyes.  
  
I wanted him to come from me, from us, and enter this world from my body.  
  
And he did...  
  
And he was strong, so strong. And handsome. He seemed to have picked up both of our best features.  
  
Jor showed me the holo-image of what Kal will someday look like.  
  
He is indeed a sight to behold.  
  
Tall and strong, black hair like the purple moon and kindly eyes.  
  
"I promise, Lara, he will be strong."  
  
He will have to be to survive on that savage planet.  
  
Jor says he will be amazingly gifted, even far exceeding current Kryptonian standards of strength and agility.  
  
He will need all that to deal with...  
  
Earth...  
  
Thankfully its sun is young and yellow....a few billion years of life left...  
  
I have such mixed feelings about the place. I researched it in my youth, fascinated by their culture of sound and mindlessness.  
  
They have such natural beauty around them...yet they exhaust it with poisons...  
  
They have such open minds, yet they cloud them with religions and ghosts...  
  
They have such love, but hate so well...  
  
Yes...  
  
They seem to have a magnificent ability to be cruel.  
  
I hope Kal is not the recipient of their cruelty.  
  
Of course, our planet has seen cruelty.  
  
There has been no war, for sure. But General Zod did enough damage.  
  
Zod...  
  
Jor's best friend, for so many years. His partner in so many endeavors. For so long, the two of them attached like brothers.  
  
The Green Death and its effects changed Zod. His entire clan was killed by it.  
  
I understand his rage.  
  
Jor chooses not to...I think if he did he might perform some of the same acts as the General...  
  
How ironic that Zod and his band will outlive us all.  
  
A sick, twisted irony that the Council has signed our death warrants while sending our planet's only criminals into a living exile...  
  
Perhaps justice comes for us all...  
  
We have read and created and applauded each other on this blue utopia while other planets have suffered.  
  
Jor maintained his space communication system long after they were outlawed. We have heard the cries for assistance from across our galaxy.  
  
How badly he and I have wanted to help.  
  
But all our resources have gone into our secret project.  
  
As they must.  
  
  
  
***********************************************************************  
  
Kal...  
  
He is still sleeping.  
  
I wonder, will he bear any memory of me?  
  
Sure enough, there are thousands of images and clips of my voice, my face, my scent, my history in the crystals...  
  
Jor keeps telling me we will never die, not really...because part of us, our love for Kal, will travel in the ship to Earth...  
  
Earth...  
  
Again I just can't completely accept it...  
  
Both Jor and I agree it is the best place to send him...  
  
He will resemble them.  
  
The sun will give him the tools to thrive.  
  
But what if he becomes lonely?  
  
What if he is seen as an aberration?  
  
I can't bear to think of my only child suffering as an alien, surrounded by a petty, ignorant culture.  
  
.I can't help but get emotional.  
  
It's so unlike anyone here to even cry anymore.  
  
My family thinks Jor and I are on the verge of committing treason.  
  
They are afraid of what will happen to Kal if we are banished to the Phantom Zone.  
  
I keep telling them everything will be resolved soon enough.  
  
Which it will be.  
  
Because we will all have perished.  
  
No one believes me.  
  
No one believes us.  
  
Simple shifts in orbit.  
  
Simple plate movement from the core.  
  
Simple science.  
  
A passing storm, so to speak.  
  
Jor's research was formally rejected last month. He had tried every avenue to get funding for a fleet of evacuation ships to save as many citizens as possible. The Council stopped him at every turn. Called him a criminal. Accused him of trying to destabilize Krypton, to create a civil war.  
  
Jor was doing nothing of the sort. He was giving us the last hope of continuing a society four billion years old.  
  
No time for anger...  
  
It is hard not to be angry though...  
  
Vanity will destroy my family.  
  
Intellectual elitism will destroy my childhood home, this fabulous city of Kryptonopolis, all the inventions and discoveries of my father's father and his father...  
  
Arrogance will keep me from seeing my beautiful child grow up.  
  
I can't help but get angry.  
  
Fools.  
  
Damn them all.  
  
***********************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Now....  
  
The time is coming close...  
  
I look at the door to our home...Jor will be back soon....  
  
I don't have much time left with Kal.  
  
I hold him close to me. I let him listen to my heart. I hope that this will leave some sort of imprint of me with him, a closeness, a warmth that he may not find on his new planet.  
  
Jor has covered every base.  
  
The ship itself is magnificent.  
  
The finest of craftsmanship.  
  
Originally he wanted to make it large enough for two.  
  
Kal and I.  
  
There was no way I would ever leave him to perish alone.  
  
We were together in life.  
  
We will be together at our endings.  
  
Kal is a baby. He deserves a chance at a full-life. A good six-hundred years.  
  
I have had my point in life, my meaning.  
  
I found my love mate one day on the Promenade beneath the dome...how regally he stood there, glancing down upon the masses...his eyes dancing with mine under the blue crystals, beneath the pink sky...  
  
The sky was pink, not red, then...the color of romance.  
  
We were considered so odd. Too affectionate for modern tastes.  
  
We were only barely accepted due to our great knowledge of science and history.  
  
We are lucky we kept Kal's ship a secret.  
  
But it was all worth it.  
  
Kal made everything whole.  
  
Everything perfect.  
  
Except for the dying sun and the doomed planet beneath it.  
  
********************************************************************  
  
I wrap Kal so carefully, so lovingly, in the special blanket Jor and I created for him. It will keep him warm and close during the long journey through cold space.  
  
Another quake...the holo-images are still telling people to stay calm....Kandor is partially destroyed....  
  
I wonder how long the Council will keep up these games?  
  
The holo-image switches to a wide shot of my place of employment, the Grand Archives of Kryptonopolis.  
  
Destroyed.  
  
All that wonder, all that effort....gone....  
  
Didn't they see the signs?  
  
Our history itself was vanishing just as we would vanish....  
  
Our destruction guaranteed...  
  
A trillion particles of dust in the freezing vacuum of space...  
  
The Archives...I wondered how many bodies lay broken beneath the reinforced glass...  
  
Kal smiled at me.  
  
I leaned in and kissed his forehead, rare tears falling from my eyes.  
  
I don't like to cry. Especially not these days.  
  
Crying will not change what will happen.  
  
What must happen.  
  
Last week in the laboratory, I caught Jor crying and the two of us just lay there, holding each other, trying to get all the emotion out so we could finish the job at hand.  
  
  
  
All that matters is saving him.  
  
  
  
Holding Kal....I walk over to the gigantic window overlooking the Capitol.  
  
Please try to remember this, my son.  
  
Please.  
  
This was a wonderful place ruined by it's own achievements.  
  
This was where your parents fell in love.  
  
This was home.  
  
The sky looked as if it was burning.  
  
Consuming all in its path.  
  
The ground began the low shake....  
  
Just as Jor predicted...  
  
This was the tremor without end...  
  
I could hear explosions...  
  
"Lara! It is time."  
  
He was home. His voice never wavering as cracks began to appear in the wall paneling...  
  
I took one last glance out over Krypton.  
  
There would never be another world like ours.  
  
I held Kal ever so close as I walked towards the blue door.  
  
  
  
  
  
END 


	2. Story Note

Note:  
  
For a very long time I have been wanting to write something, anything...about Lara-El, Clark/Kal's natural mother.  
  
It always seemed to me this was one character whom no one ever talks about.   
  
And Krypton rarely seems "real"...always this dreamy kind of memory...I wanted to try to describe it, as it existed through Clark/Kal's mother's eyes...  
  
The entire planet always seemed so hauntingly perfect in descriptions...kind of like an interstellar Eden...but with its own requisite problems.  
  
This story isn't that long but I hope I successfully merged comic/movie/Pre-Crisis history together to create something that is interesting to read.  
  
-J.B. 


End file.
